GMAT Practice Time

[anubha.iiitm]

Hi Stacy / Ron,

Firstly, thanks for your detailed responses to the questions. You are making a huge difference by running this MGMAT community thread!

Getting to my doubt, I have been preparing for GMAT since the past 20 odd days. I have prepared for the GMAT before (completely), about six months back, for 2 months, but I had to leave my preparation due to some unavoidable circumstances. My past test score has been around 700.

I wanted to know general tips on how to be more focused when doing timed questions. I aim to write the exam within a month and a half, and need some general tips on how to distribute my time. Since I am from an Engineering background, my Quant is reasonably good (I score between 49-50 most of the times).

Verbal is holding me back. Especially RC passages.

Also, I feel sometimes my preparation goes too sluggish and I feel unattentive (especially when Im doing the long RC passages, when tend to reduce my efficiency!), due to which I commit quite a few silly mistakes. Please comment on how to build the attention span, so that I can better my productivity in my GMAT study-hours, and during the drilling verbal section (second half) of the actual GMAT.

Thanks very much!

[StaceyKoprince]

Good questions!

need some general tips on how to distribute my time

Do you mean: how much time you spend per question when doing problems or a CAT? Or are you talking about how to spend your study time?

Re: focus and maximizing your stamina, you can do a couple of things:

1) when you do take practice tests, do so under 100% official conditions, including essays, length of breaks, etc.

2) when you sit down for a study session (90 to 120 minutes), plan everything out in advance. Then work consistently the entire time, with one 10-min break in the middle. Don't check email. Don't get up to get something to drink. Don't even go the bathroom - you can't during the test! Save it all for the break.

(Do NOT, though, sit down for 3-4 hours for a study session. Your brain is working a lot harder, believe it or not, while you're studying than while you're taking the test. You're trying to make new memories while you're studying - you're not doing that while taking the test. If you study for more than about 2h straight, your brain will get too fatigued, you won't be able to make as good memories, and your study will be very inefficient.)

On your breaks (during study or the test!), have something to eat and drink, get up and walk around, do some light stretching to loosen your muscles and get the blood flowing. Eat energy food - complex carbohydrates, protein, and a little fat (the fat helps your brain function!).

For RC, you don't provide details about what's giving you trouble. Reading the passages? Extracting / summarizing info? Taking notes? The wording of the questions? The wording of the answers? All of the above?

Start here, and also let me know more about what's giving you trouble on RC:

http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/04/ ... mp-passage
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/07/ ... rc-passage

[anubha.iiitm]

Hi Stacey,

Thanks for your valuable comments.

Coincidently, I came across your RC Passage articles a couple of days ago, and have been working around the same strategy- it really works! Very well put. It went a long way in breaking my thought shackles formed from hearing other people say that RC skills are built over years, and cannot be acquired within a month!- (Is it true? :))

The real problem now is - I am not able to surpass a status quo performance of 80% in RCs. I analyse my mistakes, there seems to be no set pattern of errors. Sometimes its about misinterpreting the sentence in the passage, sometimes about not going through all options before marking out my answer. Everytime I analyse, I jot down a few things I need to take care of the next time, but somehow mistakes still happen and the accuracy levels remain somewhat stagnant.

In short- could you please throw some light on the below-

1. How to set correct parameters of improvement in RC (or is it just a matter of more and more practice?), also what level to reasonably expect within a month and a half?

2. "general tips on how to distribute my time" refers to how I should plan my study schedule- should it be focused around 1 area (RC/CR/SC/Quant) a day or a combination of 2-3 areas in a day?

Looking forward to hear from you. Thanks very much!

[StaceyKoprince]

By 80%, do you mean you're getting about 80% of the questions correct? That could already be a very good figure - it depends upon the difficulty level of the questions that you're answering. (Note: I'm assuming you're talking about doing questions out of the book in a non-adaptive format. If you're getting 80% correct on an adaptive test, then that is an AMAZING performance and you shouldn't be worried about RC!)

Honestly, even just out of the book, 80% correct is a pretty good performance already. The test isn't scored based upon percentage correct, so focusing on percentage correct in practice isn't really the best way to gauge your improvement. In fact, I can't even really tell anything about someone's performance when they tell me the percentage correct, because it all depends upon the difficulty levels of the questions you're answering.

RC can be improved in months, not years, but it is also true that RC is also one of the harder areast to improve quickly. And, yes, a lot of it is a matter of practice. Just note that it's not about doing a million practice questions - you need to learn something from every problem that you can then apply to future problems. Then think about how to make that new thing a consistent habit.

For instance, you mentioned that sometimes you make the mistake of not checking every answer choice before picking an answer. Do you write ABCDE on your scrap paper? Do you make a symbol next to EVERY letter on EVERY problem before picking an answer? Start doing that every single time.

You need four symbols:
- definitely wrong (I use an X)
- maybe (I use a squiggle)
- I have no idea (I use a question mark)
- this is the right one! (I use a check mark)

You can use any symbols you want as long as you consistently use the same symbols all the time.

Next, on verbal, you should ALWAYS make 2 passes through the answers. On the first pass, you can use one of two symbols: the "definitely wrong" and the "maybe." DO NOT CHOOSE on the first pass.

Then, go look through again and choose. If you have four Xs and one squiggle (if you're using my symbols!), then you can just pick the squiggle. If you have three Xs and two squiggles, then you can examine the two squiggles more carefully. And so on.

Now, start making yourself do that every time. If you do a problem where you forget to do that and you realize halfway through or after you're done, make yourself do the entire thing from the start again, using the symbols and keeping track. The pain of doing that a few times will help you to make it a habit. :)

Generally, focus on one topic during one study session. One study session is 1.5 to 2 hours. You may have more than one study session in a day, but make sure to take a break for at least an hour betwen study sessions (otherwise, your brain gets too tired and you can't make new memories as well, so you're just wasting your time).

You may find this article useful:
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/09/ ... your-study

[anubha.iiitm]

Hi Stacey,

Great inputs. About the 80% accuracy, I have been getting this from practising OG 10 RC, the dataset is Qn. No. 50 to 200.

Realised from your comments that the percentage really doesnt count in a non-adaptive format practice. But I'm just wondering what to keep as a parameter of measuring the progress that I make in RC when practising from OGs (or shall I ignore my scores in OGs and focus on getting strategies right?)

Good suggestion on the ABCDE methodology, I have been following that for CR, now will do so in case of RC questions as well.

Also, I wanted to know- will dedicated general reading (newspaper articles/ journals/ maybe a novel) for an hour or so benefit me at this point, to improve upon RC (considering I am going to appear for GMAT around 20th July)? Or should I just focus on practicing more passages on the lines of "topic/point" technique that you have outlined?

Currently, I have enrolled for MGMAT test papers, so plan to write those, along with GMAT Prep.

I am targeting a rather ambitious score - 750 above. Need general advice on the average number of hours I should be putting in, the differentiating factors that help achieve such a score, frequency of test papers etc.

Please advise on the above. And thanks very much for the useful tips :)

[StaceyKoprince]

You can get a very general idea from percentage correct if you're seeing big differences - before, I used to get 30% correct and now I'm getting 70% correct. But really the valid way to track your progress is via periodic practice tests or practice sections under official conditions (using something that adapts to you and scores in the same way that the real test scores).

If you think about it, while you're studying, you should be excited both when you get stuff right AND when you get stuff wrong. If you got something wrong, you know you're about to learn something, and that's the whole point of studying, right? :)

General reading can help, yes, if it is focused on "GMAT-like" writing. See this article for ideas:
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2010/09/ ... ading-comp

I wouldn't do this once you get to within a couple of weeks of the test, though - better places to spend your time at that point.

I have enrolled for MGMAT test papers

I'm not sure what this is. Are you referring to our online CATs? We don't have any tests / CATs in paper format.

Re: your last question, take a look at this article:
http://www.manhattangmat.com/articles/7 ... erence.cfm

There's no one answer in terms of how much time to spend, etc, at that level. How you get can vary quite a bit at that level, but what 750+ scorers are capable of doing is very similar - as discussed in the above article.

[anubha.iiitm]

Hi Stacey,

Much useful piece. From my previous post, I refer to MGMAT Online Adaptive Test Series that I have enrolled in.

Takeaway from your article - developing the ability to recognise patterns in the questions I do, so as to use less time in solving a similar question in the test paper. Well taken.

Thanks very much.

[StaceyKoprince]

Great, I'm glad that the article was helpful!